Amnesiac

|dinner| Friday, June 27, 2003, 05:42 p.m.

One of the short stories which I wrote several years ago. Shall type out more of these scripts when I have the time.

《晚餐》

看着丈夫和孩子吃晚餐吃得津津有味，素琴心底便感到些许自豪。从小没读过什么书，一生也没什么惊人的成就，结婚十几年来便只守在家里做贤妻良母、洗衣、烧饭，生活虽然枯燥，至少她还觉得自己是个有用的人。眼看两个孩子逐渐成长，在考试里名列前茅，自己多少可以沾点他们的荣耀，算是操劳换来最珍贵的回报。

巴杀里的王嫂常说她：“你呀，孩子都那么大了，也不懂得享受一下。天天闷在家里，一出门就只是往巴杀走，连马来西亚都没去过。现在能走你不走，以后老了走不动了，看你怎么去兜风享福！”

是啊，素琴也知道自己是应该享福了。但孩子的学费是一定要缴的，丈夫赚的不多，家务杂费的负担也不轻，自己每月跟他领的几百元伙食费本来就不够，她都不敢向丈夫多讨，又哪里多来的闲钱让她去“兜风享福”？对她来说，最大的“福”大概就只是能在晚上好好地睡一觉罢了；夜夜的失眠已令她白天精神恍惚，几次差点晕去，上次在巴杀眼前忽然一黑，还是王嫂及时扶着了她。

生活还可以算是快乐的，孩子是最好的证明。

但她再受不了丈夫的呼喝。

每天丈夫下班后一到家只话不说，便在餐桌前坐下等着素琴上菜，倘若哪道菜作得不好，或是煮得多了，他便会漫声骂道：“你以为钱那么好赚？煮那么多剩菜不是把钱丢进垃圾桶吗？”不然便是：“这哪里是人吃的？你要毒死我吗？”为了不浪费剩余的饭菜，素琴都是等得丈夫、孩子吃好后才独自掏剩下的饭菜吃，即使剩菜很多，她也非挤下肚子里不可，毕竟丈夫赚钱不易。

今天丈夫晚了两个小时回家，她也没敢多问；孩子也等得饿了，她忙开饭盛菜，却又是换来丈夫的呼喊、挑剔。听到这些严厉的责骂，素琴便会心跳加速，心口闷塞，直冒冷汗。医生说过她身体虚弱才会容易受到惊吓，即使是小小的声响也足以令她顿时全身紧绷、心烦冒汗，于是劝她必须多吃补品来调节身子，但她哪里舍得花这种冤枉钱？

素琴见丈夫饭碗掏空了，急忙起身来取过碗来为他添饭。丈夫眼里流露的不满告诉她她已发呆太久了，罪该万死地没注意到丈夫在等她盛饭，怕得素琴连忙快步到厨房挖了两勺子饭捧到丈夫面前。

“你要吃死我，还是把我当成是猪？添那么多？是不是今天又煮多了怕我骂，所以要全部塞在我碗里？”丈夫嘴巴的蠕动在素琴眼中像是血盆大口要将她吞噬下去。素琴不言一语，慢慢走到客厅的沙发，软弱无力地瘫坐下来。

“哭？就只会哭？别以为装委屈就可以不做事！地板黏黏的，多久没抹了？有空不抹，还坐在那里？”丈夫的声音渐渐变得好遥远好遥远，素琴不想听，自己沉浸在纷乱的思绪中。

十几年前是母亲的朋友将丈夫介绍给素琴的。虽然她已经听说他脾气有点暴躁，但当时的婚嫁不是她所能作主的。认识了几个月，丈夫的家人觉得素琴贤淑，两人八字相合，便糊里糊涂地结了婚。婚后丈夫更始变本加厉，平时不开口，一开口不是骂，就是一句饿狼似的“我要”便野兽般地匍匐过去侵犯她。素琴在房事中从不觉得被爱，而只感觉到强暴与污辱。要不是因为孩子，她不会活到今天，多年来默默的忍受令她几乎要疯了。

但她仍忍受着。

直到巴杀里大家都在谈论素琴丈夫在外金屋藏娇的事。

素琴自是不信，但一次在丈夫衣领上看见鲜红的、好象在嘲笑她的唇印后，她才开始起疑，终于在一次跟踪丈夫的时候看见了那个妖娆的女人。她忍无可忍，上前便打了那女人一巴。那女人见一个黄脸婆无端掴了自己一巴掌，当然不甘示弱，长长的指甲在素琴的脸上划去，丈夫也被突发的事件吓得不知所措，回过神时竟反而把素琴推倒在地上：

“你这泼妇！竟然跟踪老子，来扫老子的兴！”说着，还在素琴身上踢了几下，才与那女人搭德士走了。

事后，素琴如没发生过什么事般再不提起那事。那女人在素琴脸上留下的疤痕如同永远的讽刺烙印在她惨黄的脸上。她想过离婚，但她孩子怎么办？她没有收入，法官一定会将孩子判给那对狗男女的！…为什么多年的辛苦竟换来丈夫的不忠？

于是她在今夜的晚餐里下了药，好毒死这个不爱她的丈夫。她自己先服下了一整包；孩子在她死后太可怜，她不想让他们过没爹没娘的苦日子，索性在他们的饭里也下了药。当素琴的肚子开始抽痛时，他听到丈夫难得地夸奖她今天烧的菜特别好吃，接着又听到他大吼肚子痛，孩子也哭了起来。她双手捂着耳朵。一切都将过去。她报了十几年来的仇。

一九九九年七月四日
四时二十三分

|resurrection| Friday, June 27, 2003, 12:53 a.m.

My computer died for 24 hours. Just reformatted the harddisk and reinstalled all the drivers etc. Sigh of relief.

|prozac nation| Wednesday, June 25, 2003, 04:21 p.m.

Every person who has experienced a severe depression has his own sad, awful tale to tell, his own mess to live through. Sadly Kurt Cobain will never get that far. Every day I thank God that I did.

Elizabeth Wurtzel's ending to Prozac Nation would have brought me to tears - tears of relief and joy - if I were not on the MRT train. I was so thrilled and happy at the ending that I nearly wanted to jump out from my seat and shout Yay. She finally won the battle with depression (though mostly with the help of chemicals)! In some parts of the book, I really wanted to put down the book, pause and think for a moment cos her descriptions were so involved that I really wanted to try to feel for a while what she was feeling, but I didn't cos time on the MRT was precious and I really wanted to get to the ending. May want to read the book a second time when I have the time. Below are some extracts from she who has gone through all those years of pain and hell:

In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression... I loved it because I thought it was all I had. I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified any existence at all was my agony. Taking a hypersensitive approach to life had come to seem so much more pure and honest than joining the ranks of the numb masses who could let it all slide by. What I'd stopped realizing was that if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all. Everything registers at the same decibel so that the death of a roach crawling across a Formica counter can seem as tragic as the death of your own father. The people on the outside - and that's the right word, because to a depressive everyone else is outside - who are selectively expending their emotional energy are actually a lot more honest than anyone who is depressed and has replaced all nuance with a constant, persistent, droning despair...

Depression is a very narcissistic thing, it's a self-involvement that is so deep and intense that it means the sufferer cannot get out of her own head long enough to see what real good, what genuine loveliness, there is in the world around her.

|advertisements| Monday, June 23, 2003, 07:25 a.m.

Hi. Here are some advertisements for our upcoming concert (Chinese version done by me, English by Jiajia), please contact me if you're interested!

节目：布莱德岭民众俱乐部华乐团华乐演奏会
演出名称：心的方向－聆听罗伟伦
演出地点：维多利亚音乐厅
演出日期： 2003年8月10日（星期天）
演出时间：傍晚5时
票价： $8/$10
曲目：船歌，阳关三叠，白蛇传，夜歌，大理情风，雨中行，花非花，龙

让绵绵细雨打在您的脸上，陪诗人王维在阳关挥泪送别后，再漫步在风晴云朗的大理，感受一下空气中爱情的气息，卷入白素贞坚贞不渝的浪漫传奇，亲眼目睹神龙飞游云间，化作一股独属华人的永垂不朽的精神…

不，这不是梦。且放下身遭的烦恼，同布莱德岭民众俱乐部华乐团在8月10日一起踏上这一轮非同凡响的音乐之旅，一起《聆听罗伟伦》。在这难忘的夜晚，布莱德岭民众俱乐部华乐团将会呈献一系列由罗伟伦先生创作与编配的音乐作品。

罗伟伦先生以优越的成绩毕业于北京中央民族音乐学院，毕业后为多部电视、电影进行配乐的工作，并在1980年赢得了电影界“最佳青年作曲家”的美称。近年来，罗伟伦先生更是不曾停歇，积极地为香港中乐团、新加坡华乐团、台湾民乐团等创作与编配了十余部独具风格的作品，其近期的代表著作除了特为新加坡全国华乐比赛在2002年所作的《雨中行》，还包括了连同名家陈瑞献和新加坡华乐团在2003年联手编织的《天网》。

布莱德岭民众俱乐部华乐团则是在2000年组成的。在短短三年间，乐团迅速地茁壮成长，在两届全国华乐比赛中初试啼声，并赢得了季军。乐团以年轻、蓬勃的姿态，不断大胆地尝试了风格迥异与令人耳目一新的乐曲，希望能创造出一个音乐的新方向。2001年7月，乐团呈献了一场独奏、重奏形式的《东方之音扣心弦》华乐演奏会；2002年4月，《心的方向》中更展示了其部分团员作曲的才能，首演了他们所写的重奏与协奏曲；今年，乐团又即将异于一般乐团，呈献一场专属一个作曲家的华乐演奏会。这种形式的演奏会对一般乐团来说是鲜见的，其动机更说明了乐团对罗伟伦先生的作品的青睐与爱慕，而乐团正是想通过这次的演奏会与观众一同分享罗先生作品中的奥妙。除此之外，这场演奏会也将呈献一首由古琴领奏的曲子，让听众有机会接触到这较少见的乐器，听到它那独特、典雅、迷人的音色。

千万别以为“华乐”就是枯燥乏闷的。罗伟伦先生的作品就是推翻这种错误观念最好的鉴证。他擅于将音乐的感觉勾画成一幅幅形象鲜明的音乐景象，让听众能置身于他的音乐世界之中，身临其境，亲身体验。他的作品既蕴藏着传统中乐的内涵与特色，又含附了让人神清气爽的现代气息，因此深受听众与乐员们的喜爱。乐员们喜欢征服他在乐曲中表现深切情感的挑战；听众们喜欢他能令不熟悉音乐的人也感觉到音乐中的脉搏而沉浸其中。

如此空前绝后的音乐盛会千载难逢，千万别错过了这必定令您流连忘返的音乐之旅！

Event : Chinese Orchestral Performance by Braddell Heights CC Chinese Orchestra
Title : Rhapsodies of the Heart- A Musical Journey With Luo Wei Lun
Venue : Victoria Concert Hall
Date : 10th August 2003, Sunday
Time : 5pm
Ticket Price : $8/$10
Pieces : Chuan Ge, Farewell at Yang Guan Pass, Legend of Lady White Snake, Song of the Night, Splendour of Da Li, A Journey in the Rain, Flowers in Transience & Dragon

Feel the cotton-light raindrops on your face, weep with the poet Wang Wei as he bade farewell to his loved ones at the pass of Yang Guan, enjoy a stroll along the plains of Da Li as the romantic splendour of the fantastical legend of Lady White Snake unfurls before your very eyes, and watch the mythical dragon weave between the clouds and finally bursting into great effulgence as it flexes the Chinese’ yearning for an everlasting generation.

On the evening of 10th August, let Braddell Heights Community Club Chinese Orchestra (BHCO) bring you on a Musical Journey with Luo Wei Lun, a trip that promises to be ethereal, magical, fantastic and memorable. BHCO will be showcasing a range of works by Mr Luo Wei Lun- a renowned and talented composer who graduated from The Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, with a BA (Distinction). He completed several major composition works for TV and movies and was nominated "The Excellent Young Composer" in China's movie field in 1980. In the past few years, Mr Luo has arranged and composed over 10 instrumental works for Chinese Orchestra of Hong Kong, Singapore Chinese Orchestra and Orchestra of Taiwan. His more recent works include "A Journey in the Rain"- a piece commissioned by National Arts Council (Singapore) for 2002's National Chinese Music Competition and "The Celestial Web"- a collaboration piece with Mr Tan Swie Hian and performed in this year's Singapore Arts Festival by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra.

Formed in July 2000, Braddell Heights CC Chinese Orchestra grew from strength to strength. Being a two-time third prize winner of the senior ensemble category in the bi-annual National Chinese Music Competition held by the National Arts Council, BHCO has kicked off a series of their concert series, beginning with "Rhapsodies of the Heart" in April 2002. Despite its apparent youth, BHCO is not afraid to try anything new and has always been presenting pieces that are new to the audience. The orchestra is also proud to have their own composers in residence- members who write and perform their own pieces. In July 2001, they staged a concert featuring only solos and duets. This year, they present a repertoire solely dedicated to one composer. A move seldom heard of by Chinese orchestras, this concert is an apt expression of BHCO's appreciation of Mr Luo's music. Such a performance will allow even more people to understand and enjoy his music. One of the pieces will also feature the rarely heard instrument- guqin. With its soft and unique tones, it will keep the audience spellbound and fascinated.

Let not the term "Chinese music" lull you into a false misconception of monotony and dullness. Intricately "painted", Mr Luo's music is full of life and stretches the imagination to the fullest, almost as if, one can literally see a picture as the piece moves along. Melodies which speak, not only to the audience, but also to the musicians; tunes which appeal to the senses and trigger the imaginations. BHCO will sail off at 5pm and allow their music to depict a whole of range of emotions and finally ending off on a high note. The evening promises a sweet blend of contemporary touch and traditional framework of Chinese music. Mr Luo's works are widely enjoyed by musicians and audience alike as his music gives rise to beautiful imagery, challenging and demanding yet gratifying to the musician, and pleasing and sensuous to the ears of the audience. One need not be a veteran in music to appreciate Mr Luo's multifarious music. One only needs to dare to indulge his or her senses in his music and be persuaded to participate in the evening's magic.

Music that soothes the mind and touches the heart, played by an orchestra that is daring and bold in its development, this is definitely not a concert to be missed and definitely a journey that will be indefinitely etched in one's memory.

|nel, dance and relapse| Saturday, June 21, 2003, 11:14 p.m.

Yesterday was the first day that the driverless NEL started its operations. Took a ride on it today to Dhoby Ghaut to meet up with my friends. The seats are more spacious, but the ride may be boring as it's totally underground and we won't get any scenery. Choose your seat wisely. Sit beside a pretty girl (for guys) or a handsome guy (for girls), cos the concave windows opposite you can magnify reflections many times larger, so you can get a good closeup of people sitting alongside you. There are also windows on both ends of the train so you can actually see the tunnels and tracks ahead of you - something you will not get on other MRT lines.

And so I met up with Yingjie and Yingyun at Dhoby Ghaut and went to Ju Wu Fang (Dance Ensemble Singapore) for their full rehearsal. For this Esplanade performance, We are playing live for three of their dance items, and the rest of their items are accompanied by vocals, piano, violin, guitar or erhu. The rehearsal was quite long but it was fun watching the dancers dance and feeling the bursts of energy effusing from their graceful bodies.

Then we went to Kopitiam for dinner. And I got a relapse of that suffocating illness again - sometimes after eating in an airconditioned place I will start to feel a swell of trapped air at my chest that I can't cough out. And then I will not be able to breathe properly and I will have no strength to smile or talk or even move. Today's relapse was a mild one, so I still sat through the chat and helped to move our instruments back to BHCC. Then I rushed home and ran into the toilet and coughed out hard and took a bath and lay on the bed to help me breathe. Feeling much better now.

Today's also the day that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is released. Saw people crazing over the book on the news. I love the series too, but I guess I'll wait for the soft cover. =)

|explosions| Friday, June 20, 2003, 04:45 p.m.

Had another dose of Prozac - I am amazed at how Elizabeth Wurtzel could capture her random thoughts and transform them into precise words. Some of the things she felt are what I felt at some point of time too...

Homesickness is just a state of mind. I'm always missing someone or someplace or something, I'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.

Today's experiments were on electrical circuits, and Audrey, Eileen and I had a lot of fun playing with the oscilloscope and connecting transistors, capacitors, resistors and transformers on the breadboard. And then there were the occasional little explosions when other groups mixed up the polarities and their capacitors got so heated up that they exploded. Every time someone's capacitor exploded, the rest of the class would start the finger-pointing and the long echo of 'orrrhhhh...', just like little students - and we are, ahem, teachers. =)

|the test| Thursday, June 19, 2003, 04:55 p.m.

When everyone was panicky about the Modern Physics test and was busy discussing about Planck's Quantum Theory, Compton Effect, Thomson scattering and whatnot, I was reading the first chapters of Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation - the story of how a girl from a broken family wanted so badly to get out of her own depression. While reading, I pray for a happy ending, because the story resembles that of my friend so much. Everyone likes a happy ending.

I start, as if on cue, to cry. I am so caught up in the idea that nobody would actually try to save me if I were to slit my wrists or hang myself from one of the rafters in the bunk. I can't believe anyone might care enough to try to keep me alive. And then I realize that, yes, of course they would, but only because it is the thing to do. It's not about true caring. It's about not wanting to live with the guilt, the insult, the ugly knowledge that a suicide took place and you did nothing. Once I make a suicidal gesture, then everyone indeed will come running because my problems leave the realm of the difficult, workaday, let's-talk-it-through stuff and I become an actual medical emergency.

The test was quite difficult as expected - no lecturer's ever claimed that Modern Physics would be easy, and at the end of the test, everybody was grumbling about not having enough time etc, but I am not really concerned about the results as I know myself that I have understood and grasped the important concepts and I am contented with that - that's better than getting good grades when I don't understand a single thing actually (that happened to my 'O' level Physics - I know I should be thankful but I don't feel proud of it).

The day went on with emission and absorption spectra, and capacitors that make use of the fact that electrons are 'retarded and easily deceived' (quote from the lecturer) to produce a uniform voltage. Quite interesting.

|achievements| Wednesday, June 18, 2003, 07:32 p.m.

The results for last sem are out - I got Credit for my Practicum teaching (four grades: Fail, Pass, Credit and Distinction), and I heard most people only got Pass, so I'm quite proud of myself though I didn't perform very well (lots of Cs) for other theory modules. =)

My NT ex-student, Debbie, sent me an sms in the evening telling me that she passed all her subjects, including my Science... So happy for her!

|mr lambda| Tuesday, June 17, 2003, 06:15 p.m.

The Mechanics teacher was teaching projectile motions today and he was telling us how impotent it is to consider the wetical component of the twee hanlet meters per second welocity, ize? (We could never figure out whether ize is 'is it' or 'you see', somehow ize appears at the end of all his sentences.)

Sorry, couldn't resist teasing this teacher cos we often could not understand what he was saying until we repeat the words several times among ourselves and try to make sense of them.

I got teased too when I was a teacher, but students teased me for pronuncing words CORRECTLY instead, like when I say the word hypotenuse, the girls would giggle among themselves at how funny the word sounded (by the way, it should be 'hypote-NEWS', not 'hypote-NES'). My Physics class also found my pronunciation of lambda so 'pleasant' that I have been nicknamed Mr Lambda (they wrote that in my farewell thank-you card).

|remnants| Monday, June 16, 2003, 07:42 p.m.

Little something I wrote - remnants of a far memory.

几时栽进红色的花圃中，
馥郁温柔却又害怕刺痛；
小心！不惊动传信的蝴蝶，
闭上眼，聆听无语的花颂；

幽幽地，她说：“原应叹息聪明累！”
悄悄地，我梦系雪芹：“踏雪寻梅！”
糊涂！竟不觉蹉跎流逝的岁月，
回头、睁眼：事过境迁、花雪全没！

|ariel| Monday, June 16, 2003, 04:34 p.m.

Finished reading Sylvia Plath's Ariel. Desmond caught me reading it and commented that he thought it's rather un-engineeringstudently for me to be reading poems. He's not the first to comment something like that. Many people have told me before that I should have been in arts cos I draw during lessons, and I perform quite well in music and arts-related subjects like language, sociology and law. Actually I am not quite sure why I chose the engineering path last time - probably by elimination, and due to the misconception that engineering has more prospects. I have no regrets though, cos I have gained quite a lot from engineering subjects - a concise and systematic way of formulating thoughts, knowledge of the physical world, etc.

By the way, though I may be a little arts-inclined, I'm definitely not a poem-person. Didn't understand many poems in Ariel. =p

|animatrix| Saturday, June 14, 2003, 01:09 a.m.

Animatrix is nice! 9 short animated films which are perfect prequels to The Matrix, each having a style of its own.

|j| Saturday, June 14, 2003, 10:57 a.m.

Had another long talk on the same subject with that same friend again last night, and we decided that some of us need to meet up to voice out our "grievances" so that they do not accumulate and cause further misunderstandings. Apparently many people are unhappy with J, and J has noticed this and is behaving very irritably and ungracefully as if all these years of friendship don't exist anymore, and some of us are disgusted/disappointed with her behavior.

|three strings| Thursday, June 12, 2003, 11:12 p.m.

One good thing about being a student is that you are free to organise your own time after school. People who are working usually won't have the time or energy to do other things after work. I seldom shop, so my wardrobe mostly remains the same for many years, but I managed to find time to go shopping for the past few days and bought myself a new pair of comfortable shoes (Melissa said they're cool!), new jeans and a few CDs. It feels good to buy new things - sometimes I am tired of seeing myself wearing the same old things.

Today's sectional practice was good. I was requested by Xiangbin to play sanxian again, so today I concentrated on finding the notes for all the pieces, and towards the end of the practice I managed to play the pieces together with my section - a great sense of achievement indeed - though there are still many areas for improvement.

|stanno tutti bene| Thursday, June 12, 2003, 04:29 p.m.

Finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Didn't have the time to sit down and read (if I want to read at home, the condition must be very conducive - several hours of free time, silence, comfortable bed...), so I read the book bit by bit on MRT, in between lectures and after lunches, somehow reading this way dilutes the impact of the powerful ending.

Watched Stanno Tutti Bene (Everybody's Fine) last night. A story about everyone pretending to be living happily when their old father went to visit them so as not to disappoint him but in actual fact everyone's life's in a mess. How sad and telling of the real world... The killer-combi of Giuseppe Tornatore's directing and Ennio Morricone's musical score scores once again with resonance.

I wonder if there's a compilation album of all of Ennio Morricone's movie soundtracks (Cinema Paradiso, Malena, Stanno Tutti Bene)...

|first step| Wednesday, June 11, 2003, 10:10 p.m.

Had our first Modern Physics lesson today. The lecturer was very knowledgeable and he had definitely stirred my interest to find out more about blackbodies and the Quantum Theory. But the subject is really quite difficult, most of us could only vaguely understand what's being taught today.

A friend called me at night and told me about how some people are feeling in BHCO - some are disillusionised by unrecognition, some are unhappy with the absence of democracy, some have clashes in opinions. I shared with her my thoughts. Though I know there are certain people and things I can't change, I think it is time I try to rectify these. I have not been actively doing much as I felt my post was merely a hoax, but she gave me much confidence, that there are people who will support me. Thanks to this friend, I finally took my first step in interfering the CO affairs.

|huygen's wrath| Monday, June 9, 2003, 06:00 p.m.

It feels good to be a student again, sitting, relaxing, on the receiving end, mind drifting, sleepy... It's the start of a 3-month Physics in-service course for engineers, and it feels really different now that I have begun teaching. I start to appreciate the luxury of being a student when the teacher has to constantly concentrate to remain on-task and make sure he does not say a single wrong word.

Today's lesson was on Optics. When we were discussing about reflection of light, there were many questions raised about Huygen's principle and his concept of wavelets. Just when the lecturer was busily trying to attend to these Huygen questions, there was suddenly a blackout. In the midst of darkness, the lecturer calmly commented, "Hmm, Huygen must be angry." That made the whole class laugh and the lights came back on again. And just as if the lecturer was possessed by Huygen, he began to draw diagrams of wavelets and wavefronts, and all of us understood immediately.

|waves of love| Sunday, June 8, 2003, 10:41 p.m.

Mesmorised by the Love in the Air of Dali (Da4 Li3 Qing2 Feng1) during the plucking ensemble practice in the afternoon. After A Walk in the Rain (Yu3 Zhong1 Qing2), Luo Weilun's ingenious instrumentation once again touched me with his feel and intimacy with music.

Watched the critically acclaimed Breaking the Waves directed by Lars von Trier. Just like his Dancer in the Dark, the movie is brutally dark, unsettling and depressing, yet beautiful and ironic. When Bess (no one but Emily Watson could have done a better job), a naive young woman marries Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), a handsome oil rig worker, she experiences passion and physical pleasure that she never imagined. Their bliss is cut short when an accident on the rig leaves Jan paralyzed. Believing he will never make love to Bess again, Jan tells Bess to take other lovers, convincing her that this will help his recovery. Bess is sent spiralling into a world of dark emotions she cannot understand. When Jan deteriorates into a critical condition, Bess decides to sacrifice herself under the delusion that he will get well. She dies for love, but she is condemned by the people around her, and the Church consigns her to Hell on her burial. And Jan gets well.

|yy & hh's wedding| Sunday, June 8, 2003, 12:52 a.m.

After a meeting with the Science HOD Ms Thiru at East Spring Sec, I took an hour on MRT to travel to Bukit Batok to attend Yingyi and Hongheng's church wedding. Really glad to meet up with old friends like Xiaolin, Meiqi, Shuzhen, Huiwen, (and Zew) etc.

Then went home to rest for a while before I left to attend their wedding dinner at Holiday Inn. Same table as (from my right) Shilin, Liwen, Meiqi, Xiaolin, Meicen, Zewang and Shuzhen, and we chatted about each other's job, marital status, Mr Zhou and his scandals, etc. Everyone hasn't changed much - even in appearance.

Scrolled through my recent blogs and realised that I have been feeling so much animosity for a certain person. Maybe I have become too blindly biased and the animosity is probably building up irrationally at times. I guess it is time I press the 'Reset' button, erase my grudges against him/her and try to reknow him/her from scratch.

|east spring| Friday, June 6, 2003, 08:41 p.m.

Went to East Spring Sec for the induction programme today. The principal looks friendly, but according to my friend who worked there before, he's not as simple as he seems. Good thing about the school is that its main focus is on performing arts, so I think I'll end up in a CCA that I'll enjoy. The bad things are, the school does not really put much emphasis on academic results (hmm, weird school), and the school is quite poorly equipped and students are more difficult to handle. Guess I won't have to worry about all these as yet cos I'll be attending a 3-month Physics course at NIE from next week onwards, but I do feel slightly disappointed to be assigned to this school. Compassvale was simply too good (with each teacher having his own homeroom and 2 computers, etc...).

Went karaoke with Irene and Yit Siang and sang for several hours till our voices were hoarse.

|the big nurse| Thursday, June 5, 2003, 03:31 p.m.

Reading Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The movie that was adapted from this book is my personal favorite (not just "one of my all-time-favorites", but THE Absolute All-Time-Favorite), but I'd never read the original before. It's a story about the politics and happenings in a mental institution and how a normal guy became mad in the end by staying in it. Saw the book selling for only $6 yesterday and it had a nice cover, so I bought it without thinking.

The Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth , accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kilter or in the way ties her into a little white knot of tight-smiled fury. She walks around with that same doll smile crimpled between her chin and her nose and that same calm whir coming from her eyes, but down inside of her she's tense as steel. I know, I can feel it. And she don't relax a hair until she gets the nuisance attended to - what she calls "adjusted to surroundings"... And I've watched her get more and more skilful over the years. Practice has steadied and strengthened her until now she wields a sure power that extends in all directions on hairlike wires so small for anybody's eye but mine, I see her sit in the centre of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants... What she dreams of there in the centre of those wires is a world of precision efficiency and tidiness like a pocket watch with a glass back, a place where the schedule is unbreakable and all the patients are obedient under her beam...

A truly believeable character indeed...

|clarifications| Thursday, June 5, 2003, 10:08 a.m.

I don't understand why every time I reply to a CO email thread, I get people who pick out certain unimportant phrases and make a fuss out of them. Those are not the key points I was trying to stress!! Read my email in its entirety! Either I write terribly, or I need to spell out what I mean more in-the-face. I sent my replies with the original intention of being diplomatic and making the idea of change of repertoire not seem so stupid and unthinkable, and I ended up being rebuked like a fool.

Basically the main points that I was trying to say about our orchestra are:

1. We should not practise basic technical skills at CO practices. Do that at home. We should be learning to coordinate and develop our feelings for the songs. This is evidently not happening especially for those people sitting at the back who can never find their notes and are always out-of-tune. Practices always have to pause for them to locate their notes and get their rhythms right. If I can go early to BH to practise sanxian every week (though now I am switched back to ruan again), I can't see why they can't practise their own instrument at home.

2. We have been spending too much time on certain pieces and neglecting others. Our concert is not exactly distant, and we can't afford to have only one brilliant piece and many underpractised pieces. And by the way, we spent more time on that particular piece because many of us (especially those in the key section for this piece) were still trying to find the notes - I don't consider this a CO practice. This is acceptable at the start of preparation for concerts, but not acceptable NOW, when we have only around 10 weeks left. To me, nothing is achieved from such practices.

3. We need to be professional in our attitude towards music. If everyone adopts the positive learning attitude of Caleb, that'll be great (yes, Caleb, give yourself a pat on the back). Some of us just get too conceited and think we play very well already. Self-improvement is neverending.

4. Do justice to the pieces and their composer. Convey the feel to our audience. Musical pieces are not written for us to flaunt our skills (not that we have much to flaunt anyway), what separates us from SCO, apart from their technical expertise, is that they are able to convey the feel of the pieces. They can play highbrow pieces or make mistakes, but both the laymen and professionals can still accept them, as they are able to present their pieces very sincerely and with feelings.

I could have sent this out to clarify myself. But I'm not doing it as I know there will be people who'll pounce at the chance to rebuke.

|malena| Wednesday, June 4, 2003, 11:42 p.m.

Just watched Malena. A brilliant film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of one of my all-time-favorites Cinema Paradiso. Funny, sad, ironic, sarcastic, beautiful, ugly... the cruelties of small-town gossip and exploitation on an attractive widow, seen from the eyes of a 13-year-old boy who was infatuated with her. Very touching acting from the very handsome young lead Giuseppe Sulfaro and the extremely sensuous Monica Bellucci, who played the titular role. And Ennio Morricone's affectively moving musical score... Ah!!

|valsalva, tiffany and nirvana| Wednesday, June 4, 2003, 07:18 p.m.

SAF Visit Day. We were brought to Paya Lebar Air Base to visit the static displays, Aeromedical Centre and the Air Force Museum. The static display was quite fun as we could go inside the fighter planes and visit the cockpits (the refrigerators in the cockpits are really small). But the most interesting part of the whole visit was the brief but eye-opening tour at Aeromedical Centre, as we were showed the procedures and exercises that all pilots have to go through before they are qualified to fly planes.

During training and upon every 3 years thereafter, all pilots have to go through the Ejector, which basically ejects them from their seat and they have to keep their body tight to prevent bone dislocation as they will experience a 5g-force (5 times their weight) due to the ejecting force.

They also have to be locked in a G-FET chamber that will spin centrifugally to produce a force of up to 9g (imagine how hard it would be to even lift your finger). We were able to see the pilots through a video cam when they're spun around in the chamber. Their faces would start to contort and have an apparent "ageing effect" when the force reached around 3g, most people would black out at around 5g, as the blood in our body would weigh down to our feet and none pumped up to our heart. In order for pilots to overcome this, they had to perform the Valsalva manoeuvre to enhance blood circulation. This beautifully-named manoeuvre basically involved what you'll do when you have diarrhoea and you're still trying to find a toilet - the intra-abdominal pressure created will push blood upwards.

We were also shown the effects of gradually increasing g on pilots. In the video, two pilots were locked up seated in an airtight chamber face-to-face, and they would start to clap each other's hand alternately (left hand of Pilot 1 clap with to left hand of Pilot 2, then right hand Pilot 1 clap with right hand of Pilot 2, repeat indefinitely). g was then gradually increased. We were surprised to see that the pilots started to go gaga and lose their coordination - they became slower and would start to lose track of whether they should clap with their left or right hand, eventually they would just pause and "stone".

Interesting tour. No wonder the dropout rate for pilots is so high. :)

Then my NIE class proceeded to Lao Di Fang for lunch and had a really enjoyable chat. From the 101 ways to propose, to the choice of wedding bands (Tiffany should be avoided at all costs, according to the girls), pregnancy, hotels to hold the wedding dinner (must take note of the structure of the pillars) and so on, we were all so eager to help Lin How decide to propose to his girlfriend.

Came across Kurt Cobain Journals at MPH, City Link. Flipped through it while waiting for my friend - It contained his poems (if you can tolerate words like d*ck and f*ck in a poem), lyrics, artworks, comic strips, random thoughts... A treasure for a Nirvana fan like me... but too ex to own.

|jar jar binks| Tuesday, June 3, 2003, 09:10 p.m.

She's done it again. Every time someone voices a comment, she'll "silence" him. It happens at meetings and in emails. Especially when the person is someone she doesn't like, she'll rebuke like the person is so plain stupid, or make use of someone else to do it for her.

I believe in free expression, while she wants everything to be in her control, making sure to rid of any irksome detail that may disturb the equilibrium. That is where our personalities clash. She didn't use to be like that, and I feel sorry for her. I really do.

|five little pigs| Tuesday, June 3, 2003, 06:16 p.m.

This little pig went to the market.
This little pig stayed home.
This little pig had roast beef.
This little pig had none.
This little pig cried "Wee, wee, wee, wee!"
All the way home.

This was the nursery rhyme that described the five suspects in Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs. And I must tell you this book is easily one of her BEST!

Halfway through the book I thought I knew who the murderer was, reading on confirmed my speculation as everything really fitted in nicely. I thought I must have been really clever to have detected the gaps and found the answer, and I started to feel sorry for the innocent suspect (who was sentenced to life imprisonment and subsequently died) and the 'true' murderer.

Then I realized only in the last few pages of the book that I merely saw part of the whole picture. The murderer was someone else, and I accepted this startling yet inevitable solution with no qualms at all, as this was clear but I just didn't see it! Flawless plotting, carefully-crafted dialogue, vivid characterisation, and above all, a tragedy that's so human. A recommended read for all those who like to solve mysteries.

|ten little niggers| Monday, June 2, 2003, 05:49 p.m.

Finished reading Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Niggers) in a few hours. I'd expected it to be better as I'd read on the net that this was one of her best works. Not that the book was lousy, but I just thought I'd read better works from her - the ending just wasn't "SURPRISE!!" enough for me. But it was still good, in the good old-fashioned Agatha-Christie-way, in fact there's one Kindaiichi story that is an imitation of the plot used here.

Ten little nigger boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were Nine.
Nine little nigger boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were Eight.
Eight little nigger boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were Seven.
Seven little nigger boys chopping up the sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.
Six little nigger boys playing with a hive;
A bumble bee stung one and then there were Five.
Five little nigger boys going in for law;
One got into Chancery and then there were Four.
Four little nigger boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.
Three little nigger boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.
Two little nigger boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was One.
One little nigger boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were None.

Yep, nice nursery rhyme, and yep, you guessed it (if you haven't read the book). That was how the ten victims in the story were murdered.

|joke and jar| Sunday, June 1, 2003, 07:54 p.m.

The orchestral practice in the morning was enjoyable, as some of the NTU guys (and gals) joined us and we nearly had a full-strength orchestra. The music was simply different when we had solid percussion and strings today, and this overrode the fact that the flutes remained out-of-tune most of the time. And I grew to like the 2nd and 3rd movements of the Madame White Snake.

Lunch was boring. They kept teasing Zhiq about his harem of 'concubines'. This has been the joke-of-the-century over dining tables whenever the CO had meals together. To me, a really funny joke can only be funny for a few times; after that, it just becomes very distasteful and boring. I am surprised that Zhiq never retaliated. Even our patient and adorable Kel (are you reading this?) has expressed her dislike over people teasing her about beehoon.

And so they just went on teasing Zhiq and everyone laughed, and when the laughing died down, someone had to start another round of teasing about the same thing all over again. I wonder if some of them were just patronising or the joke was really that funny. Maybe I am just not humorous enough.

Finished reading The Bell Jar. The book ended with hope, and this made it even more ironic that the author killed herself soon after its publication. When Esther asked her psychiatrist about her friend's suicide, the doctor told her, "Nobody did it! She did it!"

Indeed, people who are depressed or suicidal are only so because they allowed themselves to be so, they wouldn't be depressed or suicidal if they could be calm enough to control themselves, unless they enjoyed being depressed in the first place. This was the author's take too, as spoken from the mouth of Doctor Nolan. But the author committed suicide herself. She couldn't control herself too. Or maybe she couldn't deceive herself any further with an ending that she didn't believe in.

|2 jars| Sunday, June 1, 2003, 01:26 a.m.

Tampines Mall is usually crowded on Saturdays with people who mostly just windowshop and block my passage with their slow pace. Now, thanks to the Great Singapore Sale, the mall is even more crowded, and in addition to the people who are still blocking my way persistently, there are long queues of people at the cashier counters and multitudes of people who are rummaging through the "50%-discount"-tagged shelves in the shops. All I wanted was just a jar of alfredo sauce, and I had to snake my way through the snail-paced crowd and wait for so long to pay up. Lesson learnt: Stock up your groceries before the Great Singapore Sale starts.

Heard a bit about the book The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath from weblogs and websites. Started reading it today. The book gets darker and darker especially towards the second half, when the story about a tormented girl unfolds cruelly and matter-of-factly. The author in fact committed suicide a few weeks after the book was published in 1963.

The reason I hadn't washed my clothes or my hair was because it seemed so silly.

I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.

It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.

It made me tired to think of it.

I wanted to do everything once and for all and be through with it.